The medical personnel in the hospital were pulled in two different directions at almost precisely the same time. On the isolation floor machines were going crazy indicating spikes in blood pressure, temperature and breathing rate. On the main floor a patient had just disconnected himself from his heart monitor causing the machine to think his heart had stopped.

The nurse that responded to the machines on the main floor rushed into the room in time to see one of the patients helping the other back into bad. The dark haired police officer was leaning hard on the gurney, but seemed stable enough as he tucked the other officer under the blankets.

She thought it was odd that neither made any effort to put the braced leg back into the sling, but her greater concern was for the heart monitor and the IV towers that had somehow become tangled. She worked with the patient who stubbornly stayed on his feet until his fellow officer was comfortable again, then listened, with a blush of her own, to his shy request for help getting to the bathroom.

The officer managed to balance himself long enough to take care of business then washed his hands and poked his head around the edge of the door with another request. He didn't want to bother anyone, and it was absolutely fine if she said no, but it would be just terrific if he could get a wheelchair and get out of the room for a bit. He could roam on his own, he promised, without getting in anyone's way.

Bonnie hadn't told her about how charming Officer Kyle would be. She'd mostly warned about Starsky. But the curly-top Kyle, with his sparkling if bruised smile, and beautiful blue eyes was a killer. The nurse, Stacey, thought Bonnie was crazy.

She found a wheelchair, helped the patient into it, then offered to stay with him for a few minutes. Kyle seemed amenable to that and cautiously asked her if she'd ever worked any of the other floors of the hospital.

She didn't think much about it when they ended up on the third floor, or when Kyle insisted that they go by one of the isolation rooms, still humming with activity. She didn't connect the cessation of panic in the isolation room with their hovering presence outside, and only wondered for a moment or two when Kyle indicated, with his New York brogue, that he'd be fine on his own now.

She pouted a little, but the smile Kyle flashed her was genuine, and caused a sort of ocean wave to roll through her heart, flushing her face. She, somehow, resisted the urge to throw herself at the patient and gave him an ultimatum. Twenty minutes tops, then he was to report back to his room.

"I promise." The patient had told her, with a grin, then she'd left.


Before Dobey could make it to his car he was stopped by half a dozen officers, clerks and personnel, each asking about Starsky and Hutch while they held papers for him to sign off on, or files to quickly review. He'd worked his way through the explanation more times than he wanted to remember when the final interruption stopped him, minutes from stepping into his car.

"Captain Dobey! Hey...glad I caught ya!"

The man that had run toward him was wearing a set of coveralls that marked him as a police employee. Dobey recognized him vaguely as one of the guys that worked in the police garage. He had a camera in his hand and handed it over before walking away.

"Wait a minute. What is this?" Dobey demanded.

The employee stopped and turned, shrugging, "It was in the GTO your guys borrowed from impound. Must'a left it when they had the car towed."

"Oh." Dobey responded, turning the camera over in his hands before he tucked it into the passenger seat and started the engine. Dobey found himself mildly surprised that he managed to get out of the garage without having a patrol car pull him over for an update.

He told himself to accept that the concern was a good sign and tried to focus on the mental list of questions he planned to ask at county lock up.

When he arrived the same two officers were posted on the outside and inside of the interrogation room. Dobey had the time to introduce himself to Officer White, Officer Speece's male counterpart. They talked until Clare appeared at the end of the hallway, making eye contact with Dobey, but showing no emotions.

"How's she been the past few days?" Dobey asked, once Clare had been secluded in the room.

"Quiet." White shrugged, glancing over his shoulder. "But she's been quiet from the beginning. The most we've had out of her was the last time you were here."

"After I leave…" Dobey said, after a moment of thought. "Put her on suicide watch."

White blinked at him in surprise then asked, "Really?"

Dobey didn't respond, knocking on the door to the interrogation room before he entered.

Through the course of the conversation that followed Clare went from silent prisoner, to dominant seductress, to scared teenager, to warped witch. Her final act had been to lunge toward Dobey, chair and all, trying to bite at the finger he'd let get a little too close to her. Speece had moved a second too late, trying to catch the chair before Clare tipped it, but her balance had already been undone.

Clare hit the floor, her head bounced off the concrete and her eyes rolled back into her skull for a moment, only the whites showing. Dobey had bent to help, even as White had stormed through the door. Together they righted the chair, Speece fumbling with her ring of keys so that she could unlock the cuffs.

Dobey stopped her, barking, "Wait…"

"What...what do you mean wait? She's injured."

Dobey stared at the blank face, Clare's head supported by White's hands while Speece still sorted frantically through her keys. Then he saw the twitch again...the same twitch Clare hadn't been able to control the first time.

He stood back then turned to the door and opened it, searching the halls for jail personnel.

Baffled, Speece found the key for the cuffs and bent to unlock the first link. She'd just fitted the key into the lock of the second link when Clare came back to life, twisting her head and sinking her teeth into White's hand, her free elbow swinging back hard into Speece's chest.

Clare made it out of the interrogation room, but no farther. In the hallway Dobey had already alerted the jail personnel about the possible breakout and they were ready for her. She was cuffed and returned to her cell, and White, with new tooth marks in his hand, was taken to the infirmary for treatment.

Speece stood in the room, her hand pressed to her ribcage watching Dobey as he repeated his order for a suicide watch.

"How'd you know?" She asked.

Dobey wasn't sure how to answer her, but he'd seen a look on Clare's face that reminded him instantly of the face in the newspaper photo. The eight-year-old version's eyes had been wide open, lashes splayed, the picture of innocence...or forced innocence. The look had been complete but for a tight, tense pout to the lips that showed gritted teeth underneath.

The only thing that might have given away a precious 8-year-old as an arsonist, was the sneer her lips had been forming.

Dobey had seen the same look on Clare's face before she lunged, the same tight jawed sneer between White's hands. It made him wonder what else he could learn from eight-year-old Julie, and how far east he'd have to go to learn it.


Dobey was beginning to solidify travel plans when a call rang through from the hospital. It was Bonnie again, and she was frantic. She'd come on duty to find Starsky missing, and Kyle in his place in the room they'd shared.

Dobey was surprised that Bonnie hadn't immediately checked the most obvious place, and said, "He's with Hutch."

"How can he be? He was sedated!"

"Trust me." Dobey said, then hung up the phone, grabbing his suit jacket and once more heading for the hospital. He didn't bother with Starsky's room, by passing it and heading for the elevators, and the isolation ward.

When he got there Bonnie stood leaning in the doorway, her arms crossed, her head leaning against the jamb. Starsky, capable of sleeping almost anywhere, had found a way to get comfortable in a wheelchair and was sleeping at the foot of his partner's bed.

Dobey leaned against the opposite side of the jamb, a knowing, weary smile on his face.

Bonnie watched him then sighed, "We're just going to have to put them together, aren't we?"

Dobey nodded. "I'll be going out of town for a day or two. I can make you a list of ways to keep the both of them happy and in one spot, if you like?"

Bonnie sighed. "They're like children. Or pets."

Dobey snorted. "Only when they're hurtin'. The rest of the time they're holy terrors." Dobey slipped his arm around Bonnie's shoulders and gave her a supportive squeeze. "You keep them together, they'll turn out alright."

"When will you be back?"

"In a few days. Try to keep Bay City Memorial standing til then."

Bonnie took a deep breath and nodded, not entirely sure she could. She sighed, knowing what could be done about it in the meantime. She asked Dobey if he could watch the two while she went to arrange for a second bed.

It took Bonnie, Starsky's surgeon, two orderlies and Captain Dobey to convince the hospital director and Dr. Dean that moving Starsky in with Hutch would be in the best interest of all concerned. The previous two days were convincing enough on their own, but once Dobey and Bonnie started listing other incidents from other hospitals going back years, Director Chidester put his hands up and conceded the point.

Before Dobey went home that evening, to the reluctant astonishment of each of the medical professionals working with the two men, both were showing marked improvement within hours of being in the same room together. Starsky was less restless, sleeping without sedation, and Hutch no longer experienced the strange spikes in heart rate and temperature. It made no medical sense, but putting the two together had been the final part of the puzzle.


Before Dobey left he made a mistake. Returning to his car, after the frantic, rush to the hospital, he'd noticed the camera still sitting on his passenger seat. He rewound the film canister, ejected it and sat in his car with half-a-roll of used film and what turned out to be Starsky's camera.

The camera had been in the GTO that his men had used for a partial stakeout at the library. It was possible that there was evidence on the film that might help seal up the case. With that in mind, Dobey tucked the film into his pocket and, when he returned to the station, asked that the film be developed, and the photos and negatives be placed into evidence.

He was preoccupied with the preparations for his short trip out to Indiana, and didn't think about the one comment he should never have made. He should never have told the developer that the person behind the shutter had been Detective Starsky.

Dobey was focused on other things. He had to make hotel arrangements, plane ticket arrangements, rental arrangements and all of it had to be approved by the department. He only had a few days so he had to make sure each of the people he wanted to interview would be there, and that the Columbus, Indiana police department had the equipment he would need to properly collect and preserve any evidence he came across.

His flight back would be landing only a few hours before Officer Logan's burial, and he had agreed to be one of the men carrying the coffin. Edith would meet him at the church, his blues in hand, she promised, and if all went well Dobey could finish his week out with a bail hearing and a deposition.

Clare would be in jail, arraigned until trial and his men could focus on recovery. A long, arduous, hope filled recovery.

That was how Dobey left things when Edith kissed him goodbye at the airport.

It was not how Bay City was when he returned.